What is ‘Hosting’?

The answer to this question is actually quite simple but can seem very technical.

Each page on your website is created in the browser of the viewer using a collection of parts. These could include coding files, images, data elements and video file. These are put together by the browser to create the page on the screen. One way to think about this is like a jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces together make the complete picture.

In order for someone get to the jigsaw, it needs to be stored in a public location. As an analogy imagine the mail centre, with all its post boxes open to allow anyone to look inside. Your jigsaw might be stored in box 9234. This allows people to come to the mail centre and find it easily.

The mail centre is our data centre in Auckland, Web Hosting is the box in which your jigsaw is stored. The web Hosting fee you are charged covers the cost of keeping the building open to the public, lighting it, letting the authorities know where it is and generally making sure that when people want to play with your jigsaw, they can.

Our web server has been designed and built to effectively deliver web pages to people’s computers, tablets and mobile phones. It is run for us by people who know what they are doing and can solve issues quickly if they arise.

The Web Hosting fee we charge you covers the shared cost of keeping the various servers we offer online and ready to deliver webs pages to your viewers.

The above description is very simplistic and is meant in no way to dumb down how hosting works, but sometimes it is hard to explain something that is very complex, in terms people can understand. A few common questions we are asked about our hosting include;

1. Where are your servers?
They are in Auckland. This is because 95% of the traffic our customers get is from New Zealand viewers, this means the pages load slightly faster than if we used cheaper servers in the USA or Asia.

2.Is my site backed up?
Every site is backed up weekly. However, in 11 years of running our hosting service, we have needed to use these backups three times.

3. How much space do I have for my website?
Like most web hosting companies, our server space is not limited to website storage - for files directly related to your website. This does not include email.

4. What about my email, is it backed up?
No, we do not back up email as it is transient and changes. We recommend that people use services like Office365 or Google Mail for their mail servers, if you would like more information please call the W3 office.

5.I currently pay monthly for my hosting, can I just pay one bill yearly?
Yes, we can arrange that for you, and we give you a discount if you pay yearly rather than monthly as it reduces our admin costs.


If you have any questions regarding your hosting service with W3 please call the office.



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